Putting aside its dubious morality, advertising directly to children is an incredibly powerful sales tactic. And if you Google “how to sell to parents,” most experts pretend that this isn’t exactly what every company selling toys, films, and accessories is doing.
But there is another brilliantly powerful method for selling to parents that is chronically under-leveraged and under-discussed in today’s marketplaces. It’s free to deploy, though putting resources behind it can improve returns. It’s reliable and doesn’t require the manipulation of children—but it’s also not sexy enough for most marketers to appreciate.
We are, of course, talking about word of mouth.
Most parents buy based on recommendations
Because 50% of the world’s children have millennial parents—a more tech-savvy and progressive audience than previous generations—most companies try to reach them with highly sophisticated sales ops like data-driven paid search campaigns. While expensive and complex, such strategies can bring tremendous results when managed expertly.
At the same time, 3 in 4 parents still rely on word of mouth to discover content and gifts for their children. It’s the one source that parents value more highly than a perfectly-crafted ad or landing page: the honest recommendation of other parents.
Why is word of mouth so effective on parents?
Brands have an agenda. Parents don’t.
When we’re buying for ourselves, most of us are happy to do some research, narrow down our options, and play the game. We’re also pitifully impressionable when it comes to online advertising.
But when buying for their kids, parents are much more picky. They want a solution that definitely works the first time and that’s a good value—and if at all possible, they want to spend less than a minute researching it. And since every company says its products are the best on the market, parents know not to trust them.
In fact, very often parents don’t search for products for their kids at all—they just ask friends and school parents what they bought. This is almost universal for parents of newborns or toddlers, but it’s true for parents of older kids, too.
4 ways companies can boost word-of-mouth success
While word of mouth is undoubtedly powerful, you might think it can’t be leveraged or influenced—but you’d be wrong. There are four straightforward ways to encourage word of mouth among your digital-first millennial parents:
- Ask for referrals
- Collect reviews for every product
- Use genuine testimonials in marketing
- Get promoted by parent influencers
1. Ask customers to recommend products
In the same way word of mouth is simple but highly effective, simply asking to be recommended is the simplest and most effective way to increase sales.
If you have a genuinely good product and genuinely happy customers, you don’t need to bribe or incentivize them—you just need to ask them to share it with other moms and dads. For example, your post-purchase email might read:
“Thank you for buying [our product], we really hope it helps you with [main customer problem]. If you know other moms and dads going through similar problems, please recommend [our product] so we can help them too!”
Yes, it’s direct and blatant and specific—but it works! Sharing valuable solutions with others makes your customer feel amazing, which is why they’re happy to do it without any other incentive. This is the closest any brand can get to leveraging “organic” word of mouth.
2. Collect verified reviews for every product
Online reviews are the de facto modern-day word of mouth, with 93% of online buyers reading reviews before making a purchase. Every business should automatically request reviews after every purchase—online, offline, services, products, experiences… always ask for reviews.
And don’t let them just sit and gather dust. Put reviews to work on product pages, in marketing, in email newsletters, in blog posts, and on your landing pages. You want to get the customer’s voice everywhere it can influence prospects and leads, because it’s the deciding factor in many purchase decisions.
When requesting reviews from parents specifically, encourage customers to share their full name, a photo, and their kids’ ages. A review from “Tracey Isaac, mother of Jesse (6y) and Fiona (2y)” is far more convincing than “Tracey I.”
3. Promote genuine testimonials
If your company doesn’t yet gather testimonials, consider asking anyone that leaves a review if they’ll do a follow-up phone call. This is a chance to ask specific questions which you can use with devastating effect in your marketing. If you do already collect testimonials, make sure you actually use them!
The key is to choose quotes which speak to the challenge and solution, not just the product. For example, rather than a blazing testimonial that says, “Oh my god, this product is amazing, I can’t live without it!” you can highlight something like:
“My daughter didn’t sleep for more than 30 minutes for 2 months. The first day we used our SnoozeShade, she napped in the pram for 2 hours! It has transformed our daytime naps and, because she’s not overtired, she’s sleeping through the night, as well.”
There is simply no comparison. You’re addressing the known challenge of your customer through the lens of another parent—which is far more compelling than you simply saying the product is good. And like your reviews, get approval to publish the buyer’s name, number of kids, and perhaps a photo. This is genuine word of mouth, but you’re leveraging it for yourself!
4. influencer parents
influencer marketing is not strictly word of mouth—but it achieves a very similar result.
My wife has occasionally suggested we buy items based on the recommendation of an influencer on Instagram. What makes these recommendations powerful is the fact that it’s not a stranger on the internet; it’s someone my wife has followed for a long time and whose personality resonates with my wife.
She’s seen her journey through pregnancy, birth, and the challenging days of early parenthood—and when that influencer says her baby finally drinks all her milk using this fancy product (which my wife’s actually seen her using in Instagram stories or posts) she’s going to believe it. And buy it.
Finding a good-fit influencer is not easy. You need to do a lot of groundwork, analysis, and agree mutually-beneficial terms. But in the social media era, and especially for parents without a lot of parent friends, it’s an extremely powerful cousin to word of mouth!
Understanding the most effective channels to reach your customers is at the heart of the customer experience—and to do that, you need data. Sogolytics helps with not only gathering critical feedback easily, but also with breaking down data with powerful analytics, helping you make the most strategic decisions to spread your brand and products to new customers.
